There were also several passengers in the second cabin, some of whom were students returning home from their studies in the Danish universities.
There was a large boat to be got on board, for discharging the steamer’s cargo at Iceland, which took several hours to get fastened aloft on the right side of the hurricane deck—with the comfortable prospect of its top-heaviness acting like a pendulum, and adding considerably to the roll of the ship, should the weather prove rough.
Shortly after seven P.M. we got fairly clear of the dock. Strange to think, as the last hawser was being cast off, that, till our return, we should hear no postman’s ring, receive no letters with either good tidings or annoyances—for we carry the mail,—and see no later newspapers than those we take with us! Friends may be well or ill. The stirring events of the Continent, too, leave us to speculate on changes that may suddenly occur in the aspect of European affairs, with the chances of peace, or declarations of war.
However, allowing such thoughts to disturb me as little as possible, and trusting that, under a kind Providence, all would be well with those dear to me, hopefully, and not without a deep feeling of inward satisfaction that a long cherished dream of boyhood was now about to be realised, I turned my face to the North.
A dense mist having settled on the Frith of Forth, the captain deemed it prudent to anchor in the roads. During the night it cleared off, and at five o’clock on Thursday morning, 21st July, our star was in the ascendant, and the “Arcturus” got fairly under way.
The morning, bright and clear, was truly splendid; the day sunny and warm; many sails in sight, and numerous sea-birds kept following the ship.
Breakfast, dinner, and tea follow each other in regular succession, making, with their pleasant reunions and friendly intercourse, a threefold division of the day. On shipboard the steward’s bell becomes an important institution, a sort of repeating gastronomical chronometer, and is not an unpleasant sound when the fresh sea-air has sharpened one’s appetite into expectancy.
The commissariat supplies were liberal, and the department well attended to by a worthy Dane, who spoke no English, and who was only observed to smile once during the voyage. Captain Andriessen’s fluent English, and the obliging Danish stewardess’ German, enabled us all to get along in a sort of way; although the conversation at times assumed a polyglot aspect, the ludicrous olla-podrida nature of which afforded us many a good hearty laugh.
The chief peculiarities in our bill of fare were lax or red-smoked salmon; the sweet soups of Denmark, with raisins floating in them; black stale rye-bread; and a substantial dish, generally produced thrice a day, which, in forgetfulness of the technical nomenclature, we shall venture to call beef-steak fried with onions or garlic—that bulb which Don Quixote denounced as pertaining to scullions and low fellows, entreating Sancho to eschew it above all things when he came to his Island. At sea, however, we found it not unpalatable. There must ever be some drawbacks on shipboard. One of these was the water produced at table, of which Captain Forbes funnily remarked, that it “tasted badly of bung cloth—and dirty cloth, too!” But, such as it was, the Professor and I preferred it to wine.
Thus much of culinary matters, for, with the exception of a few surprises, which, according to all our previous ideas, confused the chronology of the dishes—making a literal mess of it—and sundry minor variations in the cycle of desserts proper, the service of one day resembled that of another.